But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word _mimus_ was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the same thing. The word _jocus_ had been used in the signification of a jest, playfulness, _jocari_ signified to jest, and _joculator_ was a word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, _jocus_ was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It became, in the course of time the French word _jeu_, and the Italian _gioco_, or _giuoco_. People introduced a form of the verb, _jocare_, which became the French _juer_, to play or perform. _Joculator_ was then used in the sense of _mimus_. In French the word became _jogléor_, or _jougléor_, and in its later form _jougleur_. I may remark that, in mediæval manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between the _u_ and the _n_, and that modern writers have misread this last word as _jongleur_, and thus introduced into the language a word which never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we see in Chaucer, the usual form was _jogelere_. The mediæval joculator, or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman _mimus_,[38] and perhaps more. In the first place he was very often a poet himself, and composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite. These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse, and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very numerous and important class of mediæval literature. The songs were commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope. Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in the modern word _juggler_. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies, exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall,